Seth’s teeth clenched. None of this was news, but he wished he had the power to bring Doug Finley back to life for the sheer pleasure of killing him.
“Doug set the fire, knowing her brother and sister were in the house with her.”
This was the first he’d heard that Lindsay had been present as well.
“Her parents tried to rescue them, and they got Abby and Lindsay out, but the boy...” Piotr grimaced. “Kent died before they ever got to him. The burns her parents sustained scarred them far worse than Abby. Mrs. Marcheson more so than her husband. They barely survived. The house burned to the ground.”
Seth let out a breath. He barely remembered Bill’s younger brother and sister. Hell, up until recently he’d barely remembered Abby. Bill didn’t talk much about his family other than Abby, and now that he really thought about it, that was odd. Bill adored Abby, always had, and he’d once adored his brother and other sister, too. Perhaps the memories of Kent were too painful, but why didn’t Bill talk about Lindsay? Granted, Lindsay was ten years younger than Seth and Bill, but still. “Why didn’t I know Lindsay was in the house, too?” And why was she pictured in handcuffs? Was that why Bill never spoke of her?
Had she been partly responsible for the fire? But that didn’t make any damn sense. She’d been rescued from the house.
There was more here than Seth could see. He needed more information.
Nothing in the clippings indicated what it was Abby didn’t want him to know about the fire. He understood why she felt the need to protect her family, and his own. But Doug was dead now. She should feel safe enough to tell him.
What the hell was going on?
* * *
Abby woke the next morning with a sense of well-being she hadn’t felt in... Well. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this good. She stretched luxuriously, rolled over and hugged Seth’s pillow with a satisfied grin.
Her dreams had been filled with Seth, and not all of them had been sexy. She leaped out of bed and danced around the room in nothing but her skin. Then she caught a look at herself in the mirror and shook her head at her own silliness.
She wasn’t afraid to admit it. She was in love.
Why else would she feel so safe with him? She had instinctively trusted him from the beginning. She wanted him as she’d never wanted another man. He made her feel things she’d never felt before. She wanted to cherish him, to protect him the way he protected her. She hugged herself as she brushed her teeth. She was safe. Doug was dead, and she was free. She took a shower, all the while thoughts of Seth dancing in her head. Of the way his eyes changed color to reflect his mood, the feel of his hair beneath her hands, the way he smelled, tasted, touched. She thought of his many kindnesses, his generosity.
Maybe, just maybe, she could tell him the secret. She’d have to get consent from the others, but hopefully they’d understand. They’d have to. If she held back for much longer, he’d find a way to ferret it out. She didn’t want to see kindness turn to anger or, God forbid, regret.
She stepped out of the shower and dried herself off. She dressed quickly in black jeans and a sapphire-blue sweater, warding off the chill in the air that nipped at her damp skin. Her bare feet were soundless as she made her way downstairs.
Abby found Seth, after having to stop for directions twice, in the breakfast room picking slowly at a bran muffin and staring into his untouched coffee.
“Good morning.” She could feel his eyes following her as she loaded her plate with a blueberry muffin, a spoonful of eggs and some melon slices. She carried that back to the table and sat across from him, giving him a sunny smile as she poured herself some orange juice.
Seth continued to shred his muffin, and the smile slowly left her face. “Seth? Is something wrong?”
His movements stopped. His eyes came up to hers. They were the smokiest blue she’d ever seen. “Tell me about the fire, Abby.”
She froze. His sudden change of attitude and his meeting with Piotr the night before added up to only one thing. “No.”
“Yes.”
She pushed her plate away, no longer hungry. “You have no right—”
“Who are you protecting? Lindsay?”
She was shocked beyond belief. He stared back with an expectant, watchful air. “What?”
“Damn it, Abby. They came to my parents’ home. Whoever you’re protecting could be chin deep in this.”
“I told you I would tell you all about it if your parents were in any danger, Seth.” She was proud of the fact that her voice was steady.
“Your stalker broke into their home, messed with their electrical wiring and left messages written on their walls. I consider that a threat.”
Abby swallowed down the lump of hurt. “Why didn’t just you ask me about it?”
“I did ask you. You told me ‘later.’ I decided later wasn’t good enough.”
Abby stood. She’d trusted him with her heart and her body, and had been about to give him her soul, and he did this? “You had no right to ask someone else to go rummaging about like that.” What else had Piotr found? He was ruthless and scary as fuck. She couldn’t let him near her family.
He stood also, his hands on the table. His expression was full of regret and the same simmering determination that had landed her in Piotr’s home. “You gave me that right when you allowed me to protect you.”
“Well...” She had to think, and she couldn’t do that here. Not with fucking regret so clear on his face. “Consider yourself fired.” She turned on her heel and ran out of the room.
She heard him move after her, and picked up her pace. She ran up the stairs, but he caught her halfway. “Abby, stop it.”
“Let me go.” She struggled in his grasp. She was so angry she could barely see straight. She kicked him in the leg and he clutched her harder, nearly tossing them both down the wide staircase.
She’d trusted him, and he’d gone behind her back.
He grabbed both of her hands, and was rewarded with another kick. He grunted in pain. He maneuvered both of her hands behind her back, pinning her against the wall. He wrapped both of her legs up with one of his and used his body weight to hold her still.
“Damn it, Abby it doesn’t matter anymore. Doug is dead.” She stilled in his arms. He lifted his weight off of her, obviously waiting for another kick.
“You didn’t trust me.” She glared up at him.
Ah. There it was, regret again. Super.
“You didn’t trust me, either.” He let go of her hands, watching her with a strange expression.
He wanted to know? Fine. He’d know, and then he’d leave her alone. “You want to know what happened five years ago, Seth?”
He nodded slowly. He reached out to her, but pulled his hand back when she turned her head away. She didn’t want him brushing her tears away, not now. “He killed my brother. He maimed my parents. Do you know what the worst thing of all is?”
“Abby—”
“My sister helped him do it.”
* * *
Seth stared, stunned, as she pushed passed him and ran up the stairs, presumably to her room.
What the fuck was she talking about?
Seth ran his fingers through his hair and headed into the living room, his thoughts whirling. The pain in her expression had been...
Shit. He settled down at the table and stared at the wall.
Okay. He could have handled that better. He had to fix this before he lost her. He needed the whole truth.
Seth had a lot to do. If Lindsay had helped Doug set that fire, he needed to know why she wasn’t prosecuted, why Abby was protecting her. He should have known. Damn it, she loved him. Nothing but family could make her lie to him.
“Why do you need to know this? Can’t you leave Lindsay alone?”
Abby stood in the doorway, her expression closed off, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. He sighed and stood. “What if your stalker tries to do the same thing, either to your family or mine? I need to
know what to do to prevent it and stop this for good, Abby, that’s all.”
She moved farther into the room, rubbing her arms hard. She hadn’t done that since they left Delaware. “You said it yourself. Doug is dead. He can’t repeat the past.”
“The stalker is pretending to be Doug, down to dressing like him. He might decide to copycat Doug’s actions, up to and including burning down your family home and beating you to death. How do I stop this if you won’t tell me what happened?”
She sat down in the chair farthest from him. “The only thing you’re going to do is hurt Lindsay, Seth. The last thing she wants to do is dredge up the past. It’s painful for all of us.”
“I can imagine, but what if the stalker goes after her or your parents or your brother and Trish?” She winced, but he couldn’t back down. Not now, not when he’d made such an issue of this. “Could someone use your sister again the way Doug did?” Abby glared at him from the depths of the sofa, and he felt her close up on him a little bit more. It was a knife twisting in his chest, but he continued. “If he can, your family is in danger, Abby. You know that.”
“Trust me, no one will ever use her that way again.”
He kept his voice as soft as he could. “Are you sure?”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. I’m sure.”
“I’m not.”
She let the deep breath out on a rough sigh. “Fine. You want to know so badly, I’ll tell you.”
“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know if it was the right thing to say, but what could he do?
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “It was five years ago.” Her voice was stilted. “Doug and I were dating. Lindsay was fourteen years old, and had a huge crush on Doug. We all thought he was so smart, so nice and so handsome. None of them knew he’d been hitting me. No one did.
“On the day of the fire, Doug tried to find me. He went to my parents’ house. Mom and Dad weren’t home, and Lindsay let him in. She knew him. She trusted him. Nobody told her not to, not even me.”
She was rubbing her scars again, and her gaze was glued to him, pleading with him to somehow take this nightmare and make it all right.
That was it. He couldn’t take the separation any longer. Seth pulled her to the sofa and sat, tugging her into his lap. She curled around him so tightly her feet were almost on the cushion, her head tucked under his chin.
“He asked her if they could have some sodas on the back deck, just sit outside and talk. I was in the house, but Lindsay didn’t know I was hiding from him. She was so young, and I didn’t want her to worry over me.”
“She would have, because she loved you.” That much he knew. The Marcheson family was close, always had been. Why hadn’t he realized they rarely mentioned Lindsay?
Abby nodded. “He told her he had something important he wanted to ask me, and he wanted her opinion on how to go about it. Lindsay thought he was going to ask me to marry him, and was thrilled. When the phone rang about ten minutes later, she didn’t think anything about leaving him there with their drinks.” Abby’s sigh was almost a sob. “She was so flattered and glad that she could help make us happy.”
Seth closed his eyes. He knew where this was going. Abby was right. No one could use her sister like that again. Lindsay hadn’t done anything wrong, and he’d dragged them both through this for nothing.
“Doug...did things to her, hurt her badly. Almost as badly as he hurt me.” Abby’s voice cracked, broke. “Her rape kit was positive.”
Fuck. Seth gritted his teeth. After he resurrected Doug to kill him for Abby, he’d have to do it again just for Lindsay. She’d been a child, for fuck’s sake.
Abby cleared her throat. “The police took her in, but were careful to make sure no pictures were put in the papers. We all knew it was a formality, but one of the cops cuffed her. She was in them for maybe five minutes before the detective in charge got them off her.”
Which explained that quick, grainy photo. “When the cops talked to her, she said she remembered having a gas can put in her hands, remembered doing what he told her to do. It was like he’d turned her into a zombie. I’m not certain, even now, what exactly he gave her, but she did everything he asked.” She swallowed thickly, and he prayed there was someone Lindsay trusted at the college, someone who could take care of her. “Everything.”
Maybe he’d talk to Gabriel, see if Rafe could pay her a visit. The Azar couldn’t heal the physical violence she’d gone through. It had been too long. But Rafe was an exceptional Azar. If anyone could heal Lindsay’s soul, it would be him.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “He told her to light the match, was laughing when he told her to drop it onto the gasoline. He then told her to lay down, and she did.
“She managed to crawl out before the fire got too bad, but Lindsay passed out before she could call for help. Our parents came home to find the house on fire and Lindsay unconscious on the front porch, barely alive. They got her away from the house, then went back inside. They got me out, and went back for Kent.” Abby had gone from rubbing her arms to scratching them so hard he was afraid she’d draw blood. “They passed out from smoke inhalation before they could save him. The firemen pulled them out, but it was too late. They nearly burned to death and Kent...was gone.”
There was a brittle, fragile silence; then she went on. “Doug wouldn’t admit what he’d done. He accused her and said she did it out of some sick teenage angst, but the police were able to track the sale of the canister of gas to him. If they hadn’t found the drug in her system, they would have charged her with murder, too.”
“My God.” Seth forgot sometimes that there was evil beyond the Shemyaza. Doug should have been purged from the earth a long time ago. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.” She sighed, a weary sound. “Yeah. Lindsay did therapy for a few years, for the rape and the murder, and she knows now that it wasn’t her fault. We were all victims. Maybe instead of promising not to talk about it, we should have promised to make sure it couldn’t happen again. But we were all so damaged and afraid, Seth. How could we end it?”
Seth found himself just as much impressed with Lindsay as he was with Abby. They were both strong women who’d been through hell. “Does she have someone she can speak to?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Why doesn’t Bill speak about her? Why didn’t you?”
“She knows it wasn’t her fault, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel guilty. We talk on the phone, but I haven’t seen her since she left for college. I think part of her doesn’t know how to face us, even after all this time. So Bill doesn’t talk about her because it hurts too much.”
“I’m sorry.” He kissed the top of Abby’s head. “I love you, Abby.”
Silence, then a soft sigh as the tension eased from her, leaving her limp in his arms. “I know.”
* * *
Abby went for a swim in the heated indoor pool. She did laps like a madwoman, churning the water behind her as she desperately tried to work off the last remnants of her anger at Seth.
How dare he research her family? Why hadn’t he just trusted Abby’s judgment?
She swam until she was shaking with fatigue. She pulled herself wearily out of the pool and picked up her towel. Shaking out her wet hair, she began to towel it dry. She’d have to take a shower to get the chlorine out.
“Abby.”
She froze. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see him. She was still hurt, the pain of her memories adding to the fresh wound he’d dealt by refusing to trust her.
“I’m sorry. I was wrong to doubt you.” He moved around until he was facing her. She wrapped the towel around herself and stared up at him defiantly. He sighed wearily. “You were right. Nobody could use your sister again the way Doug did. She’s as much Doug’s victim as you were.” Abby nodded, not giving an inch. “Did they find his supplier?”
Abby blinked. “His drug dealer? Not that I know of.”
He took hold of her arms. “Would it
help if I apologized again?” He had a worried frown on his face.
Abby shook her head. His hands began to move up and down her arms, and she softened toward him in spite of herself.
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, Abby. Please forgive me.” His smoky voice sent shivers down her spine.
She closed her eyes, and damned herself for a sucker. “All right, Seth.” She glared at him. “You do something like this again and all bets are off.”
Seth sighed in relief and drew her into his arms. He hugged her, ignoring her wet bathing suit, and rubbed his hands up and down her back. There was nothing sexual in his touch, just a soothing motion that relaxed taut muscles and eased her sore heart.
Releasing her, he cupped her cheek. She leaned into his touch and felt his thumb tracing her cheek. She closed her eyes and savored his touch.
His cell phone rang. He muttered something, but she couldn’t catch what it was, and answered.
“Van Licht.” He shot a sharp glance at Abby. “Bill? What’s the problem?” He frowned. “I’m sorry, what did you say happened to Dante?” He listened for a moment, his expression turning more and more concerned. “You’re kidding.” Seth shook his head before Abby could speak. “Yes, of course. I’ll tell her. You want to talk to her?”
Seth held out the phone. “Dante’s been in a car accident,” Seth said slowly. “He’s unable to continue on our case. They’re assigning a new man, but it might be a day or two before he gets in touch with us.”
“Shit.” She snatched the phone from his hand. “Bill? Is it bad?”
“I don’t know. The responding officer didn’t tell me. Are you okay?”
“You don’t think...?” Abby bit her lip.
“Calm down, sis. It’s unlikely. Dante’s a paranoid asshole. He would have noticed if someone had tampered with his car.”
All for You Page 18
